Sitting between the NHL Draft and free agency, I’m aware this article is like a written briefing for Inspector Gadget, a message that will self-destruct moments after being read. But on the verge of July 1st, and in the midst of the Toronto Maple Leafs making major changes to their D-corps, I think it’s worth discussing where things are at with their back-end, and where they’re going.
Where they’re at
In 2025-26, the Leafs D-corps stunk. Chris Tanev – their best defender the year prior - got hurt and missed 71 games. Brandon Carlo’s ankle got mangled and he struggled badly. Morgan Rielly has shouldered a big load while his game dropped off, and suddenly the team needed 58 games of waiver-claim Troy Stetcher and nearly 40 from Phillippe Myers. Leafs fans had to learn the names of Henry Thrun, Marshall Rifai, William Villaneuve, Matt Benning, and got 11 good games from Dakota Mermis before he got injured too.
Those are nice enough hockey players who had AHL success this year, but their use with the Leafs was mostly a symptom of how thin it was at the NHL level.
The Leafs 2025-26 D-corps mostly looked something like:
Rielly – Carlo
McCabe – Ekman-Larsson
Benoit - Stetcher
Rielly-Carlo was their most frequently used pair at five-on-five by a good distance, which in itself says something.
By shot attempt differential (Corsi) at five-on-five, the Leafs were dead last in the league. By actual shot differential, they were 31st. And by expected goals percentage, they were much better, 29th in the league.
Craig Berube was handed a struggling roster, no doubt, but they were absolutely awful. They had to start over.
And now?
Well, they’re trying, and they already look better. Adding Darren Raddysh, a guy who handled tough minutes admirably last year as a right-shot defenceman, makes an immediate impact. He scored over 20 and had 70 points while manning the power play, and his underlying numbers were great when he was out there at 5-on-5 in hard minutes, so he’s a crucial piece of the new puzzle for the Leafs.
Add in the return of Chris Tanev, and the right side goes from a mishmash of lefties asked to play their off-sides to two legitimate, quality right-shot D. They both move the puck and care and think it well, and with differing strengths. If you’re a Leafs fan, that’s all awesome.
At the draft, they traded their other right-shot guy (Brandon Carlo), who was pencilled into next year’s line-up, for a pair of third-rounders, which changes things too.
Sprinkle in the trade for Emil Andre, who’s a left-shot who played 30 per cent of his shifts on the right side last year, and the pairs look something more like the below. Let’s keep Rielly there as we work our way through a few iterations.
McCabe – Raddysh
Ekman-Larsson - Tanev
Rielly – Andrae
Like a chef tasting the soup, I’d say: better, but still needs work.
We’ll talk Rielly next, but before that: I’m not 100 per cent sold that trading Brandon Carlo was a solution to anything, not without other (good) moves. I understand this is a management group that rightfully wants to change the way the Leafs D corps plays, in that they want better skating and puck-moving from the back end. Those aren’t Carlo’s strengths, that’s true.
But Carlo was cheap next year at under $3.5 million, is still just 29-years-old, and coming off a year where he was greatly hampered by injury and asked to do too much (he played 19:22 per game). He’s solid and responsible. If he were just clearly your third-pair RD who played 17 minutes and ate penalty killing minutes, you’re ahead of most teams’ sixth D on the right side. I saw him as in position for a bounce-back year, were he to be more appropriately slotted in the lineup.
The case I’ll make for the Carlo trade is that there were certainly justifications for why you’d move him out. One is (again) that he’s absolutely the identity they’re trying to get away from, as they have for years been a roster riddled with “big” guys who don’t play big. He just doesn’t have jam, so when the defending is “meh,” his game pushes towards “what would you say you do here” territory. And on the other end of the trade, the Leafs prospect pool has been desperately thin, so adding a bunch of prospects in hopes that someone takes a big step in a couple of years, I can dig that. Those picks don’t help any time soon, but sure, they’ve been asset-light.
There was also the baggage for Carlo that “he” cost the team a first-rounder and Fraser Minten, and that was a metaphorical weight vest that undeniably hurt him in the eyes of the fans, which was always unfair.
I suppose it’s possible that after the AHL playoffs, they decided that they like Ben Danford more than ever, and they see him playing third-pair right-D as soon as next season. Either way, taking Carlo out of the line-up as of today — even if I get it
— doesn’t yet look like it makes them better.
As we approach free agency, and what are expected to be more trades, I’m hoping there’s a plan for how that gets answered. More on that in a sec.
The BIG question
What’s looming out there now is the spectre of a Zach Werenski trade. It seems almost certain that he’s going to play for Team Not Columbus next year, and rumours have it that the Leafs are one of the teams he’d be willing to play for.
That would be amazing for the Leafs construction of a truly revitalized D-corps, obviously.
The problem — or at least the main one of the few — is that the Blue Jackets sound like they want bodies back, not picks. So if you look at the Leafs and ask “that’s going to be who,” the answers I get are: Matthew Knies for sure, and Easton Cowan likely. Who else could it be for a team trying to trade the Norris Trophy winner? Remember that it won’t be Auston Matthews for several reasons, and William Nylander probably isn’t waiving for Columbus.
If the Leafs have to turf all the momentum they’ve been building with a young secondary core up front to get Werenski, how much better off would they really be?
Without those guys, up front it would suddenly be: McKenna – Matthews – Nylander (nice!), followed by…?
I guess Maccelli – Tavares - Robertson? Joshua – Groulx – Lorentz?
With Max Domi also out for the foreseeable future, and with hypothetically trading those two young players, the Leafs are immediately bad up front in a way UFAs can’t fix. It’s just too many good bodies shipped out to compete, so how else could they actually get Werenski?
Suddenly, there’s value in a guy like Tinus Luc Koblar, a second-round pick from 2025 who’s recently taken a massive step. The aforementioned Danford looks like he’ll be an NHLer, but I can’t imagine one Columbus is overly excited about just yet. They have two young goalies in Dennis Hildeby and Arturs Akhtyamov, who are real prospects, but the Jackets have Jet Greaves set as the presumed starter for years to come.
I just don’t know how the Leafs get Werenski AND get better overall by moving bodies.
Let’s say it happened. Dream world, they give Columbus the first they got from Colorado next year, another one in 2029, Koblar, Danford, Akhtyamov, a new Ferrari and six hugs per day per player for six years, I don’t know. Everything they can that still preserves their current roster. How THEN would the D-corps look?
To tease the next part of the conversation, let’s take Rielly out of the new lineup, too.
Now it looks something like:
Werenski – Raddysh
McCabe – Tanev
Ekman-Larsson – Andrae
Obviously, it’s a completely different D-core at that point. That’s a serious, playoff contender-level defence — though it seems something beyond unlikely.
You could make a case that they’d grab another UFA D, as the bottom pair still isn’t what you’d want with sending so many guys out the door, including Carlo.
July 1 has options in that category. There are giants like Vinny Desharnais and Jamie Oleksiak, there are mean ones like Logan Stanley and Erik Gudbranson (I do think they would stomach non-skaters/playmakers if they had some bite). Would Jacob Trouba come to Canada if Werenski and Matthews were going for it? Would Mario Ferraro or Andrew Peeke be into it? Veterans like Nick Jensen or Ian Cole? There’s actually a decent selection of depth defenders available through UFA, despite the lack of top-end talent.
I’m gonna pick Peeke here cause he’s six-foot-three, 28 years old and just averaged 19:30 per game for the Bruins while getting stuffed in the D-zone and fed top competition. The numbers weren’t great, but I’m just picking a guy here. He kills penalties and checks.
Now it’s:
Werenski – Raddysh
McCabe – Tanev
Ekman-Larsson – Peeke
(Andrae – Danford)
It’s worth noting that cap space is a non-issue. If they could get a guy like Ferraro, they’d be happy to pay him, I’m sure, and he’d be better than Peeke.
The name isn’t really important right now — it’s more about the way things are shaping up in the days ahead and what decisions we know they’re having to make.
The Rielly thing is still very much in the air. Like my Carlo points above, I’m not sure you’re immediately better just by subtracting him from the team. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re not, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it.
The baggage with Rielly is real. He’s seen too much, and he’s handled big minutes, responsibility and leadership. To suddenly relegate him to a bottom pair, which is a terrible usage for his skill set, almost embarrasses him. Unlike Carlo, which was a choice, this is a trade that might need to happen just because it needs to happen.
All this doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but rather in the context of the greater league and all the other teams trying to do things too. You can’t just cherry-pick all the desired parts.
But these are all questions that now sit on the desk of GM John Chayka and his special advisor Mats Sundin. They’ve charted a new course, the D-corps already looks better and has room to get better still.
How much better – and at what cost – are the big questions fans are holding their breath to find out. If anything drastic is going to happen, odds are it will come in the week ahead.
